who is benjamin walton (me)? 

(he/his/him) i grew up in gainesville, georgia, a town an hour north of atlanta and the poultry capital of the world. i’m a part of a big family, the oldest of five siblings. growing up i was always surrounded by noise and entertainment, whether it was my mom yelling that dinner was ready across the house or my dad playing james taylor on the guitar. it only makes sense that i wanted to keep figuring out how to keep the noise in my life.

i went to the university of central florida and received a bachelor of fine arts in musical theatre with minors in creative writing and music. while the program was performance focused, i fell in love with the process of putting together a show. during my time at ucf (go knights) i music directed multiple plays, musicals, and cabarets; fell in love with stage combat and certified as an actor-combatant through the safd, performed in many a show (a highlight being male ensemble track in of thee i sing), and continued my love of writing with two original productions (golden girls the musical, anything but crazy). i also took on an elective honor’s thesis and published a paper through the ucf library (‘anything but crazy: how american musical theatre can change societal stigmas against mental illnesses’). while in florida i also worked with the first two years of the florida festival of new musicals at winter park playhouse and with the florida repertory theater’s education program.

i lived in chicago (my favorite place) from 2019-2022. i music directed everyone from tommy wiseau to elle woods (jr.), performed as santa claus and a queer cowboy, tried to teach kids to love music and how to make their own, and biked through drunk cubs fans at wrigley to teach other drunk cubs fans how to throw axes. i received training from amazing chicago institutions like improv olympics, chicago dramatists, and actors’ gymnasium. i ate lots of wonderful food and had a lot of weekend midwestern small-town trips with my fiancé.

in 2022, i decided i wanted to go back to school and got into my dream program: nyu’s graduate musical theatre writing program as a composer in cycle 33. the first year of the program was a dream: i wrote more than i’ve ever written before with so many talented people, composed and conducted music for an original dance piece, composed and workshopped an aria with a professional opera singer, and wrote an original twenty-minute musical. i’m currently going into my second year in the program and developing a 90-minute thesis musical with one of my collaborators.

i’m a cat dad of two amazing cat babies: artemis and coco. i’m a lucky fiancé to my amazing partner, eranthis. i’m a lover of games both board and video. i’m an amateur cook who’s getting better by the day. i watch a lot of things, i listen to a lot of things. i’m always trying to care about anything i’m doing as much as possible. i want to tell fun, weird, and accessible stories that always have heart and sincerity at the core. and… that’s who i am right now.